IRVING, Texas - Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips made his
point, even if he unintentionally twisted one of Mark Twain's famous proverbs.
"The demise of Terrell Owens has been overly exaggerated, I believe,"
Phillips said proudly at the post-game podium Sunday afternoon.
Phillips' Cowboys had just dusted off the San Francisco 49ers, 35-22, before
a sellout Texas Stadium crowd (63,272). His star receiver, in the midst of a
relatively quiet season by his standards, had just channeled his frustrations
with the offense into a career performance against the team that drafted him 12
years ago.
Owens, who vented about his lack of involvement in Jason Garrett's system
during a Deion Sanders-NFL Network interview earlier this week, exploded for
seven catches, 213 yards and a touchdown - easily his most productive game of
the season and the second-highest yardage total of his career (283 yards vs.
Chicago, 2000) - in a decisive victory that pushes the Cowboys (7-4) three games
over .500 for the first time since Tony Romo had 10 healthy fingers.
"They unleashed me today," Owens said after producing the seventh 200-yard
receiving game in team history and helping the Cowboys stay one game behind
Carolina (8-3) for the top NFC wild-card spot.
Up next is a short week before Thursday's annual Thanksgiving Day classic
against Seattle (2-9).
Romo, still wearing a protective splint for his fractured right pinkie,
completed 23 of 39 passes for a season-high 341 yards and three touchdowns in
his second game back. He got plenty of help from the defense, which held San
Francisco (3-8) to 150 yards after the first quarter, and the special teams,
which scored 14 points off a blocked-punt-turned-safety and four Nick Folk field
goals.
The underdog 49ers embodied another Twain witticism ("It's not the size of
the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog") for about a
quarter. Quarterback Shaun Hill's 144 passing yards led them to an early 6-0
lead.
But the game's momentum changed on the third play of the second quarter, when
Romo stepped up in the pocket and hit Owens in stride for a 75-yard touchdown
catch-and-run - the Cowboys' longest play from scrimmage this season and the
longest pass of Romo's career.
On the 49ers' next drive, the defense sacked Hill on two consecutive plays.
Newcomer Carlos Polk then blocked the ensuing punt out of bounds for a two-point
safety - the first of four straight defensive stops.
The Cowboys outscored San Francisco 22-0 in the second quarter and
effectively put the game out of reach by halftime. Do-everything running back
Frank Gore had only 26 rushing yards and the 49ers averaged 1.7 yards per carry,
the Dallas defense's stingiest effort since 2003.
Owens' TD provided the initial spark.
"Always," inside linebacker Zach Thomas said. "And when you've got them in a
chase mode when you take a big lead like that, they get away from their game
plan and that's what happened.
"You get that burst when you see them hitting big plays like that. It helps you on defense,
trust me."
The Cowboys didn't make drastic changes to their offensive game plan; Owens
simply exploited San Francisco's conservative coverage throughout the day. He
didn't receive the steady diet of jams at the line of scrimmage that most teams
have employed to disrupt his routes.
The result was three catches of at least 40 yards (75, 52, 45).
"You can see he's still got it," Romo said. "He's a fantastic player and they
didn't want to do anything to take him out of the game. They just went out there
and ran a lot of different coverages, but nothing that says we're going to take
him out of the game."
Despite emphatically stating his desire for more offensive touches in his
two-part interview, Owens said he didn't take Sanders' advice and slide a note
under Garrett's door this week.
"I probably would have if I would have caught three balls today," he said,
smiling. "I've just been patient regardless. I think you guys have been waiting
for me to blow up, say something, but I've just been patient. Every week I
practice hard, I really try to perfect my craft regardless of whatever the
situation may be and how games turn out.
"When I get my hands on the ball, things happen. It's not a mystery. If you
go from what I've done here to Philly to San Francisco, nothing's changed. I
feel like I'm getting better and better each week."
So are the Cowboys, who have won two straight since Romo returned from a
three-game absence. Following Thursday's game, they'll have 10 days off to
prepare for a December gauntlet against four defensive-minded teams: the
Steelers, Giants, Ravens and Eagles.
More dominant performances from Owens will help.
"We're going one game at a time and the next game is most important to us,
and that's the big thing," Phillips said. "We're just looking at ourselves and
trying to do well, and if we do well everything will take care of itself."
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